Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/133

 Rh when unmistakable historical evidence fortifies our observations! From these we start as from a stable basis venture into more remote speculations upon metaphysical or psychical origins.

To turn now to the Letter. It presents itself as a message sent from the astrologers of Toledo to Pope Clement, informing him that the peculiar combination of the planets in their course prognosticates a serious catastrophe for the inhabited world. Let us note at once two facts. The Letter is sent from Toledo by astrologers. The echo of the Letter is heard almost in every chronicle of the time. Its fame and the dread it produced can be traced throughout Christendom, without limit of time or space. We meet with it in English Chronicles as well as in French, in German, and Italian, with some modifications, which, though slight, are yet of sufficient importance for my thesis.

The profound effect which this letter produced upon the people's imagination proves then, in the first place, how deeply the belief in the influence of the stars had penetrated into human thought in the Middle Ages, much more generally than in older times. An unexpected conjunction of the heavenly bodies was sufficient to terrify both the learned and the unlearned masses. The belief was universal and undisputed. How tempting it would be to discuss here the history of astrology and astrolatry throughout the world, lasting so many centuries! How strongly this belief has ruled over man and has influenced him in many important acts of his life! How many battles have been fought, how many political actions undertaken, under this influence only! And when we speak now of a man being born under a "lucky star," are we not standing under the shadow of the old astrological belief? Are we not still worshipping at the old shrine? One can follow the slow growth of this belief through the old systems of worship, and prove that astrology proper—that is, the science of nativities and of the systematic exposition of the influence which each star, by